Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-02-21

If the Acadians can anywhere be
seen in the prosperity of their p rimi-
tive simplicity, fancy it is in the par
ish of Vermilion, in the vicinity OF
Abbeville and on the Bayou Tigre.
Here, among the intricate bayous that
are their highways and supply them
with the poorer sort of fish, and the
fair meadows on which their cattle pas
ture, and where they grow nearly
everything that simple habits require,
they have for over century enjoyed a
quiet existence, practically undisturb-
ed by the agitations of modern life,
ignorant of its progress. History
makes their departure from the COM
paratively bleak meadows of Grand
Pre- cruel hardship, if a political ne
cessity. But they made very FORUM
ate exchange. Nowhere else on the
continent could they so well have pre-
served their primitive habits, or found
climate and soil so suited to their
humor. Others have exhaustively set
forth the history and idiosyncrasies of
this peculiar people; it is in my way
only to tell what l saw on spring
day. ~
To reach the heart of this abode of
contented and perhaps wise ignorance
we took boats early one morning at Pc
tite Anse Island, while the dew was
still heavy and the birds were at mat
ms, and rowed down the Petite Anse
Bayou. A stranger would surely be
lost in these winding, branching, inter-
lacing streams. Evangeline and her
lover might have passed each other I'M
known within hail across these marsh
es. The party of dozen people occu-
pied two row-boats. Among them
were gentlemen who knew the route,
but the reserve of wisdom as to what
bayous and cut-offs were navigable
was an ancient ex-slave, now a voter,
who responded to the name of Hon
orable" weather-beaten and wealth
| er-wise darby, redoubtable fisherman,
whose memory extended away beyond
the war, and played Familiarity about
the person of Lafayette, with whom he
had been on agreeable terms in Char
lesion, and who dated his narratives,
to our relief, not from the war, but
from the year of some great sickness
on the coast. From the Petite Anse
we entered the Carlin Bayou, and
wound through it is needless to say
what others in our tOrtuous course. In
the fresh morning, with the salt air,
n VI ,af oil rrhA III n4
were jumping in the CLASSY stream,
perhaps disturbed by the gar-fsh, and
alligators lazily slid from the reedy
banks into the water at our approach.
All the marsh was gay with flowers,
vast patches of the blue fev-de-hS in
termingled with the exquisite white
spider-lily, nodding in clusters on long
stalks; an amaryllis (pancratium), its
pure half-disk fringed with delicate
white tilaments. The air was vocal
with the notes of birds, the nonpareil
and the meadow-lark, and most con-
spicuous of all the handsome boat-tail
grackle, a blaekbird, which alighted
on the slender dead reeds that swayed
with his weight as he poured forth his
song. Sometimes the bayou narrowed
so that it was impossible to row with
the oars, and polling was resorted to,
and the current was swift and strong.
AT such passes we saw only the banks
with nodding flowers, and the reeds,
with the blackbirds singing against the
sky. Again we emerged into placid
reaches overhung by gigantic hve-oaks
and fringed with cypress. 1t was en-
chanting, But the way was not quite
solitary, Numerous fishing parties
were encountered, boats on their way
to the bay, and now and then a party
of stalwart men drawing net in the
bayou, their clothes being deposited on
the banks. Occasionally large
schooner was seen, tied to the bank or
slowly working its way, and on one a
whole family was domesticated. There
is a good deal of queer life hidden in
these bayous.